8 Ways To Reduce Risk When Hiring Developers Offshore

It’s no secret that plenty of small and large businesses are hiring developers offshore to access a larger tech talent pool and to produce better quality products and services without the high costs. Despite these, others hesitate to hire offshore due to the risks it might involve such as financial, time, and delivery risks.

Do a background check

According to a report by the Society for Human Resource Management, 69% of organisations conduct background checks of their job applicants. Similarly, before you commit to an offshore provider, make sure you know who you are partnering with.

Of course, this is a standard procedure for all businesses but be sure to be thorough. How many years have they been in the industry? What do they specialise and are they good at it? What do their past and present clients say? Consider these questions. Remember that having an offshore partner means that you share the liabilities with them so it is only natural to look for a reliable outsourcing partner when hiring developers.

Take your time

A study by Glassdoor found that it takes an average of 35 days to hire a software engineer in the US. That number could easily go higher if you’re too critical. But there’s a good reason for this.

Most businesses spend their time to source the right developer for their team. Getting the right people in your team could spell the difference between producing quality versus mediocre work, so this long recruitment process ensures that you get a suitable developer for your team. Settling for someone immediately could risk you of hiring the wrong person and could cost you more time and money.

Discuss your method

To minimize the risks of delays and poor output, you and your developers should be on the same page all the time. You and your developer must agree and align with one methodology to properly execute the project. Without a clear business model, both parties can easily get lost in terms of roles, responsibilities, and progress. Even if along the way you make staff changes, the project will continue because your goal is intact.

Communicate effectively

A survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association found that 28% reported poor communication as the primary reason of failing to deliver a project on time. Since both parties are miles apart, good constant communication is necessary to establish a great partnership and workflow. Good communication can easily bring up and address issues on both sides thus immediately eliminating risks and potential problems later on.

Communication tools such as daily scrum, email, instant messaging, and video chat among others are great ways to keep everyone updated on each other’s work and progress. In addition, part of communicating with your offshore developers is to learn and to understand their culture. This should be a consistent effort on both sides so that the cultural and language barrier won’t be in the way of your team’s workflow.

Set standards and milestones

It is important to define and set your key performance indicators (KPIs) for your offshore developers so you can maintain the quality of work produced. Setting a standard also helps you measure your offshore team’s performance. Define your criteria, create a timeline, and benchmarks to progress and to achieve your targets.

In addition, milestones help break down deliverables and let you clearly see a project’s progress. This also helps you predict possible bottlenecks and problems so you can troubleshoot before it happens.

Be transparent

When hiring developers offshore, both parties should be able to honestly say what they can and can not do. For the offshore developer, they must communicate what they can offer and to what extent of work they can do. For the business, they must also be able to relay their specific requirements, the standards they’re looking for, and the time and flexibility required of their offshore partner. Both must be transparent in order to align themselves and work towards a common goal.

Enforce strict confidentiality

Protect your data and privacy by letting all parties involved sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This not only protects information about your current project but it will also keep your offshore developer from disclosing that they work with you. Take note that an NDA does not prevent data leakage, rather it gives you the authority to sue your offshore provider if they reveal your information.

Create a backup of all the data used

It’s best to keep a backup of all deliverables and raw data that your offshore partner produced so you can easily turn over it to another provider, just in case. This also serves as your backup just in case your offshore team loses some files. Applicable to most outsourced position, this is particularly useful for those outsourcing software and website development to ensure business continuity.